


End Of The World

by Electra_XT



Category: Marvel (Comics), Marvel Ultimates
Genre: Angst, Cancer, Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-08
Updated: 2019-05-08
Packaged: 2020-02-28 17:35:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,074
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18761161
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Electra_XT/pseuds/Electra_XT
Summary: Have you ever been to an end-of-the-world party?Anthony Stark cordially invites you to celebrate his life in the final months before his untimely death.





	End Of The World

_Have you ever been to an end-of-the-world party?  
_

_Anthony Stark cordially invites you to celebrate his life in the final months before his untimely death._

—

He brought a gift. Why did he bring a gift? 

Steve stands at the edge of the dance floor, braced like it’s the front lines of a battle. He should have expected that Tony’s self-celebrating pre-funeral would be the most repellent event he’s attended in the twenty-first century. The walls around him are changing colors, exuberant and gaudy with mysterious lights ebbing and flowing as if to give the impression that the whole room is given to change at any moment, and it’s so loud— noise is piped in from the ceiling, the floor, the people writhing around him— whispering and echoing, inevitable. He clutches the gift in his hand like a grenade.

Maybe Tony’s right. This is what the end of the world would look like.

Tony isn’t shy about talking about his death. He’s informed Steve at least twice that he expects to have strippers at his funeral. He told Thor that he wanted to have his coffin “lit up with a bolt of lightning, darling, make it big,” and he told Jan that nobody would be allowed to wear black, but everyone would have to cry inconsolably. “I expect _rivers_ of mascara. Nothing less.”

“How are you going to enforce this?” Jan had said.

“I’ll haunt you,” Tony had replied. “Boo.”

Steve never tolerated it, but he accepted that he could do nothing about it, that arguing with a dying man was like trying to explain income taxes to a three-year-old. He can’t help but grit his teeth when the subject comes up, so he moves away whenever Tony talks about it, and if Tony ever notices, he says nothing.

A young woman appears out of nowhere and waves a tray of shrimp at Steve. He waves a hand to say no, but in drunkenness or deafness or misunderstanding she comes closer, extending her hands so he’s forced to stare into the clammy ring of shellfish on the lacquered tray, lit up purple by the lights, unerringly glossy.

“No thank you, ma’am,” he says. The surge of the party rises up and stuffs his words back into his mouth, but the girl hears him anyway and shrugs. 

“Okay,” she says. Up close, her eye makeup is decorated with smudges of glitter. No rivers of mascara.

“Where’s Tony?” Steve asks, raising his voice. 

“What?” she shouts.

“Where’s Tony?”

“Ohhh,” the girl says. She grabs Steve’s arm to steady herself and the shrimp nearly slips, but Steve catches it with his other arm and guides it to stability. “Tony Stark? In the… he’s either in the center of everything or he’s, like, somewhere.”

“Thank you,” Steve says politely, and crushes his napkin to death in his fist. The bass vibrates in his boots. He has to leave. He has to find Tony, and then he can leave. He brought a gift, God knows why but he did, and he has to deliver it— it’s like a mission. Get in, get out. Try not to kick any soused young people in the teeth when they’re writhing on the dance floor, catching each other and undulating under the strobe lights, unwavering in the sameness of their rebellion. Goddamn it. Steve grits his teeth and invades.

The people part too easily when he enters the crowd, glassy eyes widening as they stumble out of the way. One thin man holds up his hands like he’s under arrest, and Steve gives him a curt nod. Forward— he’s moving forward, he’s holding his head up, his sense of direction doesn’t waver and he twists his head back to see if he’s in the middle of the crowd yet, but every part is the middle, he might as well be climbing the inside of a sphere.

Something wraps around his arm and he jerks, looking down. It’s Jan’s hand curled on his bicep. She’s wearing a short, shiny dress that looks like a bullet. Her face is serious.

“Where’s the attack?” she says.

“What?” Steve says. “An attack where?”

“That’s what I said,” Jan says, stepping out of the way of a couple of dancers. “What happened?”

“Nothing happened,” Steve says. “Did something happen?”

“You look like you’re here to declare war.”

“What?” Steve says. “I’m not— I’m looking for Tony.”

“Tony?” Jan says. “Oh, he left.”

“He left his own party?” Steve says.

“I mean, yeah,” Jan says, grabbing him. “Tony does that. Sometimes he comes back, sometimes he doesn’t.”

“Why?”

“He gets too drunk, or he finds someone to hook up with, sometimes he’s just had enough. I don’t keep track of him. If I’m at one of Tony’s parties, I’m not going to be looking for Tony, you know?”

“Where can I find him?” Steve says.

Jan scans the room, as if she’s going to find something Steve hasn’t, and then she shrugs expansively, holding out her arms. “I don’t know. You can ask Jarvis.”

“Jarvis,” Steve repeats, and he nods. “Thank you, Jan.”

“Sure,” Jan says, turning away. “I hope you find him.”

“Thanks,” Steve says, but Jan’s already disappeared. Something revs and blasts in the music, and as everyone goes bananas, Steve ducks and cuts his way out of the dance floor, onto dry land.

Jarvis. He has to find a way to get into Tony’s living quarters. He’s got a mission: get in, get out.

—

He finds Jarvis in the foyer, adjusting a spray of flowers in the corner. He looks up when Steve runs in out of breath.

“Master Rogers,” he says. “May I help you?”

“Where’s Tony?” Steve says, coming to a stop.

“Master Stark is indisposed at the moment,” Jarvis says, turning back to the flowers.

“Indisposed how?” Steve says. The image of Tony under a pile of women swims into his mind and he shakes it away.

“Not amorously, I can assure you,” Jarvis says, turning to Steve. He peers at him over his glasses. “Are you looking for him for a particular purpose?”

“Well,” Steve says, “I, uh, I brought something for him. Maybe you could give it to him for me.”

He extends the small package to Jarvis. Jarvis looks down and takes it, and then looks back up at Steve.

“Is this Ultimates business?” he says.

“Not exactly.”

“Then what is it for, may I ask?”

“Nothing, really,” Steve says. “I didn’t know what kind of party this was going to be. I thought I had to bring a gift, so… I brought a gift.”

“Hmm,” Jarvis says. He holds it up. “And may I ask what you chose?”

“It’s a book,” Steve says, feeling more idiotic by the minute. “Pictures of, uh, airplanes. Old ones. I figured I couldn’t really top his whole futurist act, but…”

But alcohol seemed in poor taste. But flowers were for women. But Tony had lit up one evening over team dinner, twirling the stem of a wineglass in one hand and gesticulating with the other, talking about the age when flight was new and exciting and everyone would feel a swoop in their stomach at the idea of riding in a real airplane. _But now? Flying’s old news, darling, we peek out from under our courtesy sleep-masks and ask how many in-flight movies we can watch before we land in Tokyo._

“Hmm,” Jarvis says again. He looks at the gift, clumsily wrapped, and then up at Steve again. “If you take the north elevator to the twentieth floor, you will find Master Stark in his private suites.”

“I wouldn’t want to intrude,” Steve says. “If he’s left the party, he probably doesn’t want to see anyone, least of all me.”

Jarvis places the gift back in Steve’s hands.

“On the contrary,” he says. “I think you’ll find you should proceed.”

— 

“Tony?” Steve calls, stepping out of the elevator into the hallway. The carpet is disconcertingly soft and the whole floor is quiet: too pristine; nearly uninhabited. Steve clutches the gift in his hands. He shouldn’t have come.

“Tony?” he says. “Are you up here?”

Another silence. Steve steps further out into the hall. It’s less a hallway and more an antechamber, really, deliberately neutral, with discreet passages leading presumably to the space where Tony actually lives. Silent and still. Steve looks down at the gift again. He’ll try one more time, and if Tony doesn’t answer— well, he’ll have tried.

“Tony?”

There’s a cough from behind a door. Steve is instantly alert, battle reflexes kicking in.

“Are you all right?” he says.

Another cough, and then a retching sound. Steve runs towards the rightmost door and raps his knuckles against the wood.

“Jarvis, tell them I’m fine,” Tony’s voice says. “Let the people do whatever they want, I don’t need to babysit them. Oh, Christ—”

Steve waits until Tony seems to have finished retching.

“It’s not Jarvis,” he says. “Tony, it’s me. Steve.”

There’s silence.

“Why,” Tony says.

“Can I come in?” Steve says, hand hovering by the doorknob.

“I’m fine,” Tony says, and then he breaks into the retching again, a horrible hacking sound that doesn’t stop.

“Do you need help?” Steve says. “I can—”

“I don’t need your help,” Tony says from behind the door, the words twisted in vitriol. “I don’t need your pity, Captain, I’m— I—”

Steve winces as he hears Tony heaving for breath, strangled and choking, gagging horribly, and then silence. Steve knocks on the door. No response.

“I’m coming in,” he says, and he waits a fraction of a moment, but there’s no sound. Steve rears back, sizes up the door, and delivers a swift kick the space above the doorknob. The door swings open and Steve advances, hands out like he has his shield.

Tony is slumped on the floor in a white satin robe, one hand still clutching up at the bowl of the toilet. In the sumptuous bathroom, he looks the picture of defeat, skin sallow against glossy tile and chrome finishings.

“My Lord,” Steve says. “Tony?”

Tony’s hand lifts from the floor and waves feebly.

“Can you talk?” Steve says. “I can take you to the hospital, or SHIELD medical, I can—” He could scoop Tony up in his arms with no effort and run.

“Don’t bother,” Tony says hoarsely. He presses his forehead against the cool porcelain of the toilet. “It’s the chemotherapy, darling. Side effects are a bitch.”

Steve stares down at him, and then sits down gingerly on the floor. Tony’s bathroom is truly palatial, with a sunken tub in one corner and glass dividing walls extending from the floor to the ceiling, shower heads and faucets sprouting from smooth surfaces. Steve sets the gift down on the floor next to his folded legs.

“There’s a chair in here somewhere,” Tony says, face still against the toilet. “If you want to sit.”

Steve looks around. There’s indeed a seat positioned by the widest mirror, and Steve shakes his head. “Why do you need a chair in your bathroom?”

“Makes it easier to sit and shave,” Tony says.

“You can’t just stand?”

“Steve, you should know by now that this is an unwinnable argument,” Tony says, bringing his head up. He blinks his eyes open blearily. “Nothing in moderation. Excess to the end. And, well, I hate to play the imminent death card, but the end isn’t so far away.”

“I suppose you’re right,” Steve says. “Must be nice to sit sometimes.”

“Better than collapsing on the floor,” Tony says dryly.

“What happened?” Steve says, shifting so he’s facing him. “Is it always like this?”

“More often than not,” Tony says. He sighs. “The chemotherapy, I swear, it’s like skipping all the fun parts of being a drunk and going straight to pathetic. Nausea, fatigue, the whole affair, it’s excruciating. I tried to take pills for the nausea so I could be—” He makes an unreadable gesture, wiggling his fingers. “So I could play host for tonight. But I couldn’t keep them down. Oh, the irony. How’s the party?”

Steve swallows.

“Is it awful?”

“I didn’t stay for much of it,” Steve says.

“Oh good,” Tony says. “I hope it’s awful.”

“Why on Earth would you hope that?”

“They need a reason not to miss me,” Tony says. He shifts away from the toilet and leans his back against the wall. “I plan on tiring them out so they never want to go to a party like this again. Because they’ll never get to. Well, they’ll have my funeral, but that’ll be a somber affair.”

“Rivers of mascara,” Steve says.

Tony gives him a wan smile. “I’d forgotten about that.”

“I’ll make sure to check for you,” Steve says. He’s not entirely comfortable venturing into Tony’s bleak terrain of humor, but he’ll do anything to keep that trace of a smile on Tony’s face. “I’ll stand by the door stopping the ladies as they leave. If I see a dry face, I’ll send her back in to properly, ah, weep.”

Tony laughs. It seems to hurt him as it claws its way up from his abused throat, but even as he’s pinching the bridge of his nose, the smile remains. “You’d make quite an imposing figure, darling.”

“It’s my speciality,” Steve says.

“I’m thinking of changing my vision, though,” Tony says. He holds up a single finger. “One tear per person. Nothing overwrought. Spare, poignant, harder to fake.”

Steve’s heart clutches. He’s struck with horrible certainty that he will be the one to carry Tony’s coffin, or the jar of his ashes. At the memorial, he’ll be standing before the collected masses, and everyone will see his face.

“Am I making you depressed?” Tony says. “I’m sorry, Steve. I’m sure this isn’t how you meant to spend your evening. You’re free to go, you know. If you’d like you can take something from my bar as a favor.”

“I brought you a gift,” Steve says abruptly, reaching down on the floor next to him for the package. He places it by Tony’s hand. “I came up here to give it to you.”

“Oh,” Tony says, picking it up. He holds it in his hands and looks at it appraisingly. “Is it edible?”

“No,” Steve says.

“Good, because I couldn’t keep down even a corner of a Saltine today,” Tony says, tearing at the paper in the way that only wealthy children learn to do. Steve resists the urge to grit his teeth, reminding himself that Tony is sick, he’s teetering on the edge of being truly infirm, he is half-sitting and half-lying on the floor of his own mausoleum and it’s not the time to judge. Tony drops the wrapping paper beside him when it’s all off and holds the book up to look at it.

_“Aircraft,”_ Tony reads out. _“The Definitive Visual History.”_

“I thought you might be interested,” Steve says. “I don’t know what you do with that suit of yours, but I figured you might like to take a look at some of these.”

“Thank you,” Tony says, looking up at Steve. He looks younger, calmer. “I haven’t read a paper book in ages.”

“There’s one picture in particular,” Steve says, scooting towards Tony and reaching for the book. Tony holds it out to him and Steve takes it, flipping through the pages until he finds the one he wants.

“Oh,” Tony says, tilting his head and looking down at it. “That’s romantic.”

“I guess it is,” Steve says, looking down at the picture. A pilot climbs the stairs onboard his plane and a woman stands on the tarmac, hands clasped as she gazes up at him adoringly. “It reminded me of when you go out in the suit. You fly by the office buildings, and they all… they clap.”

“They clap,” Tony repeats. He looks up at Steve. “Some of them do. Most of them are sick of it.”

“I’m not sick of it,” Steve says. His voice comes out low, but he presses forward anyway against the anxiety in his gut. “Whenever I see you in the suit, I know I’ve got backup. I don’t have to be the only one saving the day. You’ll be swooping down with your fancy jet engines and landing next to me, and it’s pretty damn impressive, if you ask me.”

“You think too highly of me,” Tony says. He slides the book back onto his lap and gazes down at the picture. Steve realizes he’s cast himself as the adoring woman at the side, but looking at Tony now, he doesn’t care. He’d give anything to see Tony soaring again.

“You could use a little confidence,” Steve says.

“Really?”

“What?” Steve says. Tony’s tone is unimpressed, amused, almost mocking, and Steve’s on the knife edge of irritation again. “It’s not like you’re on top of the world right now.”

“Hmm,” Tony says. There’s still too much lightness in his voice, but Steve can let it go. Tony looks up from the book and gives Steve an appraising look. Steve shifts, uncomfortable under his gaze.

“I don’t think I’m going to die tonight,” Tony says.

“I’m glad,” Steve says, relief swelling in his chest.

“But I’m going to eventually, so I’m perfectly justified in canceling all my appointments for tomorrow,” Tony says, standing up from the floor. Steve’s at his side instantly, holding him up as he staggers. “So unless you have to go—”

“I don’t,” Steve says.

Tony smiles. They’re close now, joined where Steve’s arm wraps around Tony’s torso. Steve is aware of a frisson between them, a held-breath tension, and he desperately wants Tony to survive just a little longer so he can follow the spark and unwind the coiled something between them as far as he can take it. There’s a crust of saliva at the edge of Tony’s lips. Steve curls his hand around his ribcage, pressing in, wanting.

“Then I cordially invite you to spend the evening with me,” Tony says. “I will be having a cold glass of water and nothing else. The only entertainment provided will be a book about airplanes. We will probably not be able to leave my bedroom, but not in the fun way, I’m afraid.” He shoots Steve a shameless look, and Steve meets his eyes, trying to send a silent beam of affirmation. _Another day. Another time._

“I’d be honored,” Steve says, and he takes Tony’s hand.

**Author's Note:**

> If you enjoyed this, you can reblog its post on [ Tumblr! ](https://electra-xt.tumblr.com/post/184746295381/fic-end-of-the-world)


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